Distance education at the Brazilian Air Force Officers Enhancement Course

the impact of an experiment

Abstract

The research aimed to analyse how the use of Distance Education (DE) at the Brazilian Air Force Enhancement Course, offered by the Brazilian Air Force Enhancement School, affected the performance of those students that took the course using this educational modality between 1990 and 1998. The Distance Education implementation at the Brazilian Air Force is being introduced in a historical context. The Constructivist Theory is discussed as a base for teaching and learning collaborative communities. These communities are used at the DE systems in order to achieve efficiency and the significance of time and space factors are also analysed within this process. The research methodology was distinguished by an exploratory ex-post-facto study, following the hypotheticaldeductive method, mainly using qualitative data with quantitative contribution. The DE students performance was compared with the accomplishment of the traditional ones and as a result it was noticeable that DE students had an inferior performance than the traditional ones. Possible causes have been sought out through questionnaires
with students from the DE group. From the gathered information, it was possible to identify the probable causes and confront them with the theoretical framework used. The research revealed that the following aspects were the main reasons to justify the DE students inferior performance at the course: lack of time, in order to effectively devote themselves to the DE course and the lack of teaching and learning collaborative communities that could promote integration and improvement to the Distance Education process.